On July 11, 2001, in Vlasenica, the killers fired a bullet which killed a 16-year-old Meliha Durić. Twenty-five years have passed since the crime, and the family has almost lost hope that the killer will be caught. The competent prosecutor’s office in Republika Srpska claims they are conducting an investigation.
Meliha Durić was 16 years old, and on that day in July she just wanted to visit her birth house with her father. The criminal ideology, which from 1992 to 1995 had killed over 2,500 Bosniaks and exiled the rest, could not stand by and watch attempts to minimise the consequences of the crime through return.
A murder unsolved for 25 years is proof that the main aim was to sow fear and to send a message that there is no place for mass return of Bosniaks in Vlasenica.
When Klix.ba asked about the case, the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina said that this case is not under their jurisdiction.
The District Public Prosecutor’s Office in Istočno Sarajevo said they are conducting an investigation against the unknown perpetrator, and that he has not been found yet.
“The Prosecutor’s Office regularly conducts measures and activities within its jurisdiction in this case, to identify and process the perpetrator of the aforementioned criminal offence ‘Murder’. Considering it is about a case with a severe consequence, the District Public Prosecutor’s Office in Istočno Sarajevo considers all cases of this and similar kind a priority, which entails constant work and case supervision,” said the District Prosecutor’s Office.
In an interview with Klix.ba, Murat Durić spoke about the crime itself and his fading hope that the killer would ever be brought to justice.
“Nothing will come out of it, I know, when Muriz Memić cannot do anything and the one in Banja Luka…What can I do,” begins the conversation with Klix. Ba Murat Durić, the father of murdered Meliha.
He emphasised that lately he has not heard from the judicial authorities, although he has submitted all his findings to the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council.
“No one, ever. I submitted some of these documents to the HJPC, because I found them. People helped me and found online that a man who was in state security gave a statement; he made some statements about it, but he didn’t give his first and last name, but, you know, he did not want to say it. But late Mujo Hadžiomerović knew him. But that is it.” Durić said.
In an emotional personal account, Durić described details of the crime.
“I started cleaning here, to dig new foundations. She was with me. But first, I headed over here. We were taking turns in shifts. There was a house here, and still is. We all moved into it. We went to work from there, to clean, to prepare. When I set off, she asked me, ‘Dad, can I stay? I want to ask mom if I can go with my dad to Vlasenica and see where I was born.’ So I started working on that here. The night we went, the news was on BHT, around 11 p.m. She said, ‘ Dad, please, do not turn off the TV so that we can watch Srebrenica.’ When the memorial stone was being laid, I left a TV on for her. I told her, Go get diapers from the basement for your brother.’ She said, ‘Dad, I am afraid.’ So I went to get it. I changed the baby’s diapers. As soon as I lay in bed with the little one, I placed him on my left arm, next to the wall and window. At the same moment, there was a loud bang on the window. The little one screamed; I thought it hit him. I carried him into another room. I examined him, but there was nothing on him. He was scared. And when I returned, out in front, my cousin Muradin was there. He was wounded; it was his arm or his finger, I am not sure. I saw her, covered in blood, on the bed. A white shirt was on her, soaked in blood on her chest; leaning back, she had collapsed onto the bed. I called her: Meliha, Meliha!’ like she wanted to tell me something, but couldn’t. She couldn’t because she was slaughtered, slaughtered by a bullet. Because that is how it was,” Durić told through tears.
He explained that in the beginning there was a proof and a witness to whom a gun was brought from which the shot was fired, which was proven in France.
“What investigation? There was something on the trail, but they wouldn’t allow it. There was a lead when the guy who repaired rifles said that after Meho was wounded, the rifle was brought for repair one to two days later. And when Meliha was murdered, also somewhere around the 13th, I think, it was brought for repair. He said it. After that, the man disappeared. I heard he was sent off; they gave him the necessary documents, and he went abroad, Australia or somewhere else, I don’t know… So, there was a lead after all. Everyone took it in; they came and gave statements. And then later our people came to examine it, and suddenly there’s supposedly no evidence it was that rifle – those ballistics experts came from Sarajevo, or whatever. But in France, it was proven that shots were fired from that rifle. I had a few hearings, but nothing came of it. This guy, Duško Tomić, also set one up for me. He caught me off guard, while I was, as they say, out of mind. To push this forward, you know, to represent me. He never appeared at a hearing until the last time, and yet there is no evidence. That is how it stopped, and it did not happen ever again. I submitted some documents to HJPC; they said: ‘We have nothing to do with it.’ I got my response; they say: It is under the jurisdiction of Republika Srpska.’ There,” Durić said.
He said that he was last contacted about four or five years ago and he has not had any contact information from the prosecutor.
“Sometimes they emit it on TV (the murder of Meliha), I don’t know. Nothing will come out of it. Nothing. There is nothing. I can’t bring her back,” concluded Durić.
Anđelko Mirović was a suspect for the murder of Meliha Durić, but in 2004 he was cleared of charges.
The investigation was led by Mane Đurić. Due to suspicions of his command responsibility for sending civilians to the Sušica camp and for crimes committed at the police station, UN international police forces denied Đurić permission to continue performing police duties in 2002.
In 2018, an indictment was issued against Đurić for the persecution of Bosniak civilians in Vlasenica, unlawful detention, murders, sexual abuse, torture, disappearances, and other inhumane acts committed during 1992 and 1993. Đurić passed away in 2024, and the proceedings were terminated.
The murder of Meliha Đurić remains a lasting mark of the crime against the Bosniaks of Vlasenica and proof that even the end of the war did not stop the ideology of blood and soil, Klix.ba writes.
